10.10.2011

Enough.

I don't talk about politics that much, especially on this blog but even in social situations it is not likely that I will ever bring it up.

Partly because I don't feel sure enough or well-read enough or smart enough or assertive enough.

Partly because I have seen the devastation and polarization that politics can cause between friends, between strangers, between a nation. And I just don't want to contribute to the noise. What's the point?

But also, there is a part of me that thinks maybe I am just afraid. It seems so vulnerable.

And there is the fact that a lot of times, despite all that I read and try to digest and process and question...I just don't really fit into a voting box. And honestly, that is so much harder to articulate than just saying R, D or I. Where is the box for "I don't know but I am trying and in the process, trying not to lose heart"?

I don't have an agenda today. I don't have a candidate I do/don't want to endorse or a party that I love/hate.

I am trying to not become cynical, to respect others' opinions, to not scream when they say the exact opposite of what I believe to be true at the moment, to keep a sense of curiosity, to not lose hope.

I guess more than anything I am tired of the eye-rolling, blind dismissal of the Other. I am tired of reading hateful words. I am tired of this big distraction of Us vs Them while markets crash down around us. (But at least we still have our tightly-fisted convictions.)

Do you love the Tea Party? Do you hate it? Do you love Obama? Do you not? Do you love free market capitalism? Do you recoil at its principles?

Are you friends with someone who would say the opposite?

Could you participate in a conversation with them without lashing out? Are you willing to recognize that there are flaws in your own thinking? That there are things you --and your party don't understand?

It is my sincere hope that I will live to see the day when we all look back and say Remember those days...? and shake our head at the madness that was The Polarization Period.